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Fear is in the Eye of the Beholder

The thought that fear is in the eye of the beholder came to mind last Thrusday night. My three year old was watching basketball with papa who was transfixed with surfing between the game and an episode of River Monsters. The host and biologist Jermey Wade goes on a night hunt on the Fitzroy River of Australia to track and catch a Sawfish.

I found myself viscerally opposed to the sensationalized imagery and scaremongering contained in the program. A high level of propagandizing nature in its habitat something, in my spectrum of motherhood, I find unsuitable for a 3 year old (no matter how fascinating the information and facts shared). In vocalizing my assessment I was confronted with papa’s comparison of this cinematography to the stories we read to our daughter weekly; the reality that although I found this episode distasteful (alot like a nature program on steroids) among my daughter’s favorite books are Peter and the Wolf, The Three Little Pigs, Where the Wild Things Are, Beauty and the Beast, Little Red Riding Hood (notice the theme here?). She is fascinated with the dark portrayal of the animal kingdom; portrayals such as wolfs, wild things and beasts as symbols of malintention, trickery and provocateurs of fear.

I am comfortable with exploring her fears in a fantastic literary context but when it comes to a cinematic portrayal of the dangerous and scary face of nature, real habitats, I find myself cringing.

Is it that fear is in the eye of the beholder? In this case myself with my deep fear for the unknown especially in dark water (as my sister can attest to) or is it that fear is “trained in the eye” of the beholder? Training derived from a variety of domains and in this case a domain; so effective, so intense, so targeted, it is a domain most of us will not live without……………………… TELEVISION!